Polyarc’s Moss has made a habit of coming to as many VR headsets as possible, but its upcoming version for the new Oculus Quest headset is unique in that it will be the first time the beloved VR game has appeared on mobile hardware. That means Polyarc will no doubt have its work cut out for it optimizing the experience. Fortunately, it looks like that work has already started.

Speaking to Windows Central, Polyarc CEO Tam Armstrong confirmed that the developer is already working on the Quest version of Moss, though it isn’t playable yet. “We think that experience where you can really get into the game and enjoy it will be nice and streamlined,” Armstrong said. “Hopefully it will be a nice streamlined experience getting into Moss, and people will enjoy playing it.”

With its standalone form factor and six degrees of freedom (6DOF) inside-out tracking, Quest does indeed represent an easier way to jump into VR. That said, one talk in particular at last week’s Oculus Connect developer conference made it clear that studios will have to make a lot of concessions to fit their Oculus Rift games onto Quest, though the results can still be impressive. Armstrong seems unphased by the challenge, though.

“I think we’ll make adjustments, but Moss was purposefully designed to be highly constrained,” he said. “The way the camera works, the way the lighting works, we feel like there’s going to be work to do of course, like there was moving to any of the other platforms, but it’s nothing that we’re extremely concerned about. We’re much more excited about having that portable six degrees of freedom, which is very motivating.”

We did ask Polyarc if Moss would support gamepads on Quest, though the team declined to comment for now. The kit, which launches in spring 2019 for $399, comes with two Touch controllers, but wider gamepad support is not yet confirmed.

Zero Days VR, the 2017 experience that itself was based upon the larger Zero Days documentary, just won the award for Outstanding New Approaches: Documentary at last night’s 39th News & Documentary Emmy Awards. The experience beat out other entries like Time’s Finding Home piece and We Are Witnesses from The Marshall Project.

Developed by Scatter with the help of Oculus Studios, Zero Days VR shines a virtual spotlight on the issue of cyber warfare, recounting the story of the Stuxnet virus in a visually innovative way. As we hear from experts we see the virus do its work in the invisible ‘cyber realm’, creating a striking visual style. The 360-degree trailer above gives you an idea of what to expect.

VR is no stranger to the Emmys. Over the past few years experiences like Henry have walked away with awards throughout the institution’s various ceremonies.

Good news for PSVR games that like to scare the bejesus out of themselves; the final installments of The Exorcist: Legion VR arrive on the headset next week.

Episode 4 and 5 of the horror series, which originally launched on PC VR headsets earlier this year, will land on Sony’s headset on October 9th. The fourth chapter, Samaritan, has you exploring a failed quarantine zone in Haiti, while the last, The Tomb, puts you in a final showdown with the demon Paszuzu.

Since the final episode’s launch on PC a few months back we’ve gone on to review the full five-part series and we think it’s one of the best horror VR experiences going. “The slow-building tension is expertly paced, each and every scare feels visceral and dangerous, and the sheer sense of terror you feel while methodically exploring the richly detailed environments is staggering,” David Jagneaux said in our review.

September’s Steam Hardware Survey doesn’t see much change in VR headset usage on the platform.

Last month we reported that the gap between the two headsets had widened, with Rift claiming 47.11% of the total usage and Vive taking 42.58%. But there are only marginal shifts to report this month; Rift is up to 47.27% and Vive is down to 42.36%. The gap has widened again, then, but not in any really meaningful way.

Microsoft’s Windows VR headsets also gained slightly more ground this month, moving from 7.18% in August to 7.22% in September. It’s the poor Oculus Rift DK2 that suffers the most from these increases, falling from 1.18% last month to 1.11% this month. When will the now-ancient development kit finally be put to rest?

As always, we have to point out that this survey isn’t a definitive means of telling which headset is outselling the other, as it’s an optional thing that requires VR owners to actually have their respective headsets plugged in. Oculus did tell us that Rift was selling ‘really well’ at Connect last week but we don’t really have any way of telling what that means.

It may have been a slow month for the survey, but it’s possible things could pick up pretty soon. The holiday season is nearing and no doubt both Oculus and HTC are hoping many people will put Rifts and Vives respectively under the tree this year. What kind of promotions can we expect to see to entice more users over?

Last week the VR event of the year came and went — Oculus Connect 5 — with Facebook’s Oculus Quest formally revealed as the company’s next attempt to tap a consumer market for VR hardware in 2019.

The fully standalone headset requires no phone or PC to operate and will start selling early next year for around $400. Facebook said Quest will ave 50+ games at launch and the company is helping to port over many of the top Rift titles including Superhot, Robo Recall, The Climb, and Moss. We expect games like Beat Saber, Marvel Powers United VR and other popular games to make appearances on Quest as well — alongside a timed exclusive for Vader Immortal — the official Star Wars experience which seems to include lightsaber combat.

Facebook is waiting until closer to release to reveal the full launch lineup for Quest, but the hour and 15 minute long keynote includes updates for Oculus Go and Oculus Rift as well. Go will soon be getting a casting feature and the keynote also included language making clear how Facebook is thinking about the PC VR market.

The full keynote is embedded below, but we cut down a 14-minute version focusing just on the key information above. Note that our super cut focuses on the product and game announcements and doesn’t include the Michael Abrash predictions portion which is the last half hour of the Oculus Connect 5 keynote.

What do you think about Oculus Connect 5’s announcements? Let us know down in the comments below!

Community Download is a weekly discussion-focused articles series published every Monday in which we pose a single, core question to you all, our readers, in the spirit of fostering discussion and debate.

Death to the Project Santa Cruz, long live the Oculus Quest. Now that Oculus Connect 5 is officially in the books, we know the real, consumer-facing name of Facebook’s upcoming standalone VR headset and we actually had the chance to go hands-on with the device from the show floor in San Jose.

We got to play Superhot VR, Tennis Scramble, Dead and Buried Arena, and Face Your Fears 2 on the device and overall came away extremely impressed. The Oculus Quest will ship in Spring 2019 for $399 and includes two 6DOF Touch controllers as well as the headset itself, which is entirely standalone, 6DOF, and wireless. It represents a middle ground between the Go and Rift.

We still don’t know the full launch lineup, but we do know at least 50 games will be ready by the release date including Moss, Robo Recall, and more. All of technology is really, really impressive — but is it enough?

At the OC5 keynote Mark Zuckerberg said that in order for a VR ecosystem to be self-sustaining and successful, it needs about 10 million users. There are only 3 million PSVR headsets out there and we still don’t know a number for Rift, but it’s fair to assume less than 1 million since that hasn’t been announced yet. In our hands-on I stated that this could be the VR headset for everybody, but what do you think?

So, if the Quest is going to be the breakout success that Facebook hopes, it needs to do really, really well. Which brings us to the following question: Do you think the Quest will outsell the Rift? Will it do so well that the Oculus Quest becomes Facebook’s primary device going forward? Will this become the best-selling headset ever? Why or why not?

Let us know what you think down in the comments below and make sure to watch our live Q&A show from last week for more details.

Every month we aim to round up each and every VR game release for you in one single place — this is September’s list. Don’t worry — we’ll continue highlighting the best ones at the end of each week too.

With the door closed on September, we’ve just been through another great month of VR content. Between Creed, Blind, Transference, and Windlands 2 there were lots of titles to look forward to last month. Now with October upon us, it’s time to take a look at what’s coming down the line next.

And if you’re a VR game developer planning to release a game soon — let us know! You can get in touch with me directly by emailing david@uploadvr.com or hit all of the editorial team by emailing tips@uploadvr.com. Please contact us about your upcoming releases so that we can know what you’re working on and include you in release lists!

We would love to include mobile releases, but there is very little visibility about what’s coming to Gear VR, Go, or Daydream and it’s difficult to track releases accurately by date. That being said, if you have a mobile VR title in the works with a specific launch date or window, let us know!

As a point of emphasis: reach out to david@uploadvr.com or tips@uploadvr.com to let us know about your upcoming VR game releases!

It’s been a busy year for Dragon Quest. The most recent entry in the long-running Japanese role-playing game series, Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, recently came out on PC and consoles to much critical acclaim. But unless you live in Japan, you might’ve missed another crucial milestone: the release of the franchise’s first virtual reality game.

Dragon Quest VR made its debut this past April at VR Zone Shinjuku, a Bandai Namco-owned VR arcade located in the heart of Tokyo’s eye-popping Shinjuku district. It’s a first-person location-based experience that takes place on a huge 65 ft x 39 ft grid where multiple groups can play at the same time. Each team consists of four players and three different classes: two melee warriors, a mage, and a priest. Your goal is to fight through a series of battles before facing the powerful Zoma, an iconic Dragon Quest villain.

Given its novelty and regional exclusivity (along with a little prodding from Games Editor David Jagneaux), I had to try Dragon Quest VR for myself during a recent trip to Tokyo. As a non-Japanese speaker, it was … more challenging than I expected. It all started with trying to order my ticket. You see, VR Zone operates like a carnival. In addition to charging an entrance fee, each of the attractions — which also includes VR experiences based on Dragon Ball Z, Mario Kart, Evangelion, and more — requires a separate ticket purchase.

At 3200 yen (roughly $30) per person, Dragon Quest VR is one of the most expensive games there. But it doesn’t seem to have any trouble drawing in a crowd.

Cultural Obstacles

When I was trying to book my reservation online, the time slots I wanted kept selling out. It was a little nerve-racking because I had trouble filling out the registration form; I later realized I couldn’t submit it unless I wrote my full name in katakana. I also had to print out my ticket via the ticket kiosk — a machine that doesn’t have an English option — inside of a Family Mart convenience store. (If you’re in Japan and would like to do this yourself, these two sites were helpful for filling out the form, and using Google Translate on this Family Mart PDF made the pick-up relatively painless.)

Once I arrived at my appointment at VR Zone, however, the process was a little smoother. Since I was going in solo, three other people — a teenage boy and his parents — filled out the rest of my team. The language barrier was still somewhat of a hurdle. The staff member who was preparing the different groups for the game couldn’t speak English very well, and the instructional video that we watched before gearing up was also in Japanese. Luckily, I was able to follow along with the video thanks to an English transcript that the attendant handed me.

To keep things simple, I decided to play as one of the warriors. Their main job is to hack-and-slash through monsters